Two Moons are not Better than One
by Alice Arclight
Summary: I've always wanted a fic that gives a happier ending to the episode Another Time, Another Place for Helena and Regina. So I am doing this. You kind of have to be familiar with Another Time, Another Place to get all the references…so I apologize if this story seems kind of confusing.
1. Regina KesslanRegina Carter

**Two Moons are not Better than One**

**Part I**

Prologue

Regina Kesslann was in excruciating pain…and for good reason. She was watching the moon split into two right before her eyes, and yet she was the only one seeing it. She tried to tell everybody, but no one could understand her. Even to herself her voice sounded like screams.

The astral phenomenon of a hyperspatial maelstrom began to tug on one moon more than the other. And like two objects orbiting in separates parts of a whirlpool, reality happened faster for one moon than the other. Regina watched as she left the other Regina behind. And the other moon too. And the other Alpha. And the other Alphans.

Two moons should not be separate. They should be together in parallel…but not touching. Her brain split apart when she understood that.

* * *

1.5 years ago (Earth II time)

Another Regina ran across the open field to where the last intact Eagle stood warming up. She ran past Helena who was saying good-bye in the arms of a space suited John Koening. Regina ran inside and up into the cockpit and embraced her husband.

"I just want to tell you to hurry back," she said.

"We will." Alan Carter said in as comforting manner as he could manage. "But we have to get going. Kano is predicting another maelstrom in 24 hours. We gotta get these supplies…in case."

She parted from him after a kiss.

Helena and Regina watched from a safer distance as Eagle One blasted off to get some supplies from the moon…a destination they would never reach. Both women walked back arm-in-arm to their little farming settlement off of the Santa Maria coast…one of Paul and Sandra's two little boys who had accompanied them out to see the launch followed behind at first then ran ahead. Neither woman was aware that, by that night, the erratically timed hyperspatial phenomenon would come again, early, and they would soon be considered widows.

* * *

Present Time (on Earth II)

Regina Carter spun about feverishly on her wicker bed, under the geodesically constructed half-ball shelter that served as her living/storage hut. She sweated and fumed and raged in half a fury.

"The other moon is coming!" she shouted. She cried. She sat up. Helena tried to hold her down. "Alan's there! John is there!"

"My John?" Helena asked, now intrigued. "Our John and Alan are coming?"

"Nooooo!" Regina moaned. "Not ours. Theirs! They're coming. And when they get here…they're going to kill us! Ohhhhhhhh!"

Regina grabbed her head in agony. Helena shook her.

"Alan and John are dead, Regina," Helena said sternly. "They've been gone more than a year now. We HAVE to move on."

Paul, robed and bearded, looked on with sympathy. He knelt down and pulled Helena away from the sobbing woman.

"Go easy," Paul said. "You know she has never been quite right since…since we lost Alan and the Commander…"

"…yes, I know, Paul. I know EXACTLY what it is like." Helena interrupted. "but, she hasn't stopped mourning since. And, the maelstrom last night now seems to have made her worse. They usually make her edgy the next day…but today she's predicting 'doom'."

Sandra now knelt at Regina's side and tried to soothe the delirious woman. Sandra looked up cautiously at Tanya Aleksandr who had just arrived with some water to cool Regina down with.

"Maybe," Sandra suggested timdly. "Maybe Kano could interface again…and see if computer can detect any changes…or give us predictions on what might be occurring out there…to make Regina so crazy."

Paul's former assistant controller almost seemed to take no notice of the suggestion. She pulled back the sleeves of her long brown robe and squeezed out some water from a cloth. She blotted the Regina's sweaty forehead…to which the febrile woman gasped, "Thank you…thank you…thank you…"

Tanya, true to her Russian heritage, spoke quite directly on the subject:

"I don't want to lose David," she stared at Helena coldly and then more sympathetically at Regina. "We've lost too many husbands already. This will be the second time in two days. Isn't that pushing his brain too far? It's not fair…"

"If it were me, if John were here again, I wouldn't risk him for anything either…" Helena admitted. "But we DO need to know what is going on…and if David isn't any worse the wear for it…"

"…I know," said Tanya almost desperately. "But…but…it's different now."

* * *

Under a geodesic dome that housed many plants…underneath that, underground was the rows and rows of electronic stacks that was what was left of what they could bring to Earth of the XL-5 computer that used to run things on Moon Base Alpha. Now, when it communicated with the satellites that still orbited the moon it served as weather forecaster and phenomena predictor. The separate Alphan Santa Maria settlements relied on these predictions, for they lived on an Earth that could throw unpredictable radiation and atmospheric conditions at them sporadically.

Under the glass dome Kano settled back onto a reclining medical examination chair as Helena massged an electrode right at the base of his skull. Kano was the successful application of an experiment to see if the human brain could interface directly with an artificial intelligence…aka Computer. Kano and Computer used to need an actual physical connection, but as Computer's AI evolved so had Kano's hypthalmus and now a wireless link and reasonable proximity was all that was needed.

Helena monitored his brainwave function vigilantly. She had to. She had promised Tanya she would. Kano's eyes were wide open but he was seeing something else. He could see what computer thought.

"My God! There really is more than one moon," he said in almost mesmerizing fashion. "And it's going to take orbit soon…"

Kano gave a spasm.

"Computa? Computa? !" Kano's brow furrowed as he became visibly agitated. His native Jamaican accent came out. "No…dat's crazy. How do we stop dem, then? 'old yourself togedda now. C'mon… C'mon."

Tanya looked to Helena for cues. Helena shook her head. Kano's EEG reading was only slightly outside of normal. His pulse and bp were a little elevated as one would expect with an upset person.

Tanya wasn't taking any chances. She was going to bring him out of it.

"David, honey? Break! Break!" She let the contact of her fingertips to his temples redirect his virtual connection back to the real world. "Come back to me. Log off. Log off… It's okay."

Kano sat up now and could see everyone around him. He smiled, but squeezed in the top of his head. Tanya forced him to look into her eyes.

"Are you allright?" she asked.

"Yeah…that hurt a little, but I think I got the gist of what Computer was saying."

"What is it?" Paul prompted.

"Well…Computer is a little…how do I say this…at an elevated crisis management level, because it has been detecting, since the maelstrom last night, that there are two moons."

Kano held up two fingers. Everybody gave a little murmur.

"So there is OUR moon," Kano continued. "That belongs with OUR Earth..up there right now. This other moon is from another Earth…from another time. You get it?"

"No," everybody agreed almost in unison.

"Well…Computer says that just as the maelstrom delivered us right back here at our Earth 5 years ago, last night's maelstrom deposited THAT moon here...right into a trajectory around the WRONG Earth…get it?" This time Kano did not wait for everybody to catch up. "So that Moon of course has a Moon Base Alpha on it too. With a Computer. Another Computer and another group of Alphans just like us…in parallel with us. And, what Computer says is that we cannot live together. The closer they get too us the closer we get to calamity."

Paul, Sandra, Helena and Tanya were all silent now.

"Computer suggests that this is what is happening to Regina. She is somehow telepathically tuned into her other self…and as that other self approaches…she is sort of suffering information overload."

"Fascinating, huh?" Kano concluded. He settled back into the reclined seat.

"David, what are you doing?" Tanya asked.

"You brought me out too soon," he explained. "I gotta calm Computer down…and find out what Computer wants us to do."

"No…" Tanya pulled on his shoulders and made him sit back up. "Not now. That's enough. We can decide for ourselves what to do."

"But Computer needs…" Kano

"I need you," she said firmly.

"Helena has my brain. I'll be allright, Tanya." Kano gave her a winning smile as he caressed her cheek.

"David…my only one" Tanya leaned into him and whispered in a conspiratorial fashion even though everyone was crowded around close enough to hear every word she said. "Now…I think I am going to have your baby ."

Sandra squealed and came from Paul's side to try and hug both of them.

"Ohhhhhhh!" Kano's eyes bulged. "Now?"

"No, silly. Nine months from now!" Sandra joked. "Oh, congratulations. I am so glad. Johnny and Anton will have someone to play with. Our community will grow!"

Paul who had begun to smile, unnoticed by the others, began to stroke his beard with increased frustration. Without preamble he clasped his hands together and lifted his eyes upwards…religious humility, but seriousness was in his eyes.

"Heavenly father, thank you for this blessed news, but now forgive us, for we have to stop this other moon…"

**end Part I**


	2. Your Future is Their Past

**Your Future is Their Past**

* * *

Moon Base Alpha

Sometimes, when she was semi-lucid, Assistant Controller Regina Kesslann talked to Helena as if they were old friends. Which struck Helena as very odd…as they really weren't that close. Even odder, even in her most coherent moments, Regina was no longer really 'there'. Not just in the 'she's out-there' crazy sense, but in the sense that Regina truly did not believe she was on Alpha.

"Oh..thank god we have some ozone cover today," she would say. "I do hate how the uv rays wreck my skin. It does wonders for the sunflowers though…wouldn't you say Helena?"

That was as good as she got. In her worst moments she raged on and on about Alan and Commander Koenig being dead or how neither of them were visiting her even then they were 'back'. Initially, Helena could not make heads or tails of it.

But, as Alpha got back on its feet after traversing a hyperspatial vortex, it was becoming clearer that Regina's condition was related to their present course…towards what appeared to be Earth.

What should have been a joyous return to their home planet was overshadowed by two ominous problems. One was that there was no sign of life on Earth, as far as Alpha's preliminary scans could detect: No radio signals, no orbital satellites, no night lights apparent during optical observations of the dark side of Earth. The other big omen of misfortune always came when Regina went into apoplectic fits. She prophesied doom more and more often as the moon got closer to slowing and approaching what appeared to be its old orbital path around its mother globe.

In what passed for a break from business for John Koenig he stopped by Medical to get an update from Helena.

"So she thinks she is living on Earth?" John asked.

"Yes," confirmed Helena. "But that's not what makes her frenetic. It has something to do with this 'life' that she has on Earth. She believes that Alan Carter is dead...and that they were married."

"That's crazy," John remarked. "Did you show her that Alan is alive?"

"Yes. I did," she admitted with much chagrin showing. "I had Alan come down here. I thought it would calm her down. It was great at first. She was so happy. She fell into his arms and tried kissing him so much. I didn't think she would ever let him go…but she did. When Alan didn't response, she grabbed her head and cried that he was dead and that he was the 'wrong' Alan…and she stated over and over that we were all headed for destruction. She seemed so disoriented. She seemed to be crying for herself. She would say repeatedly, 'I am in the wrong time at the wrong place. I am in the wrong place at the wrong time! '"

"Her brain scans?"

"Getting worse." Helena showed him progressive scans of Regina's cerebellum. "I though I would collate the data just for a cursory analysis and Computer actually said that Regina is receiving input into her visual cortex at twice normal rate. This is causing swelling of the tissue. I may have to put Regina into an artificial coma soon to prevent permanent brain damage. I don't know what else to do."

"Well, don't put your trust too much in Computer," John advised. "Kano says he is noting 'negative degradations' in the artificial intelligence routines. And this is a very bad time for that."

John slapped his hand on a central comm post and began to stare out the window.

"What?" Helena asked.

"We are going to have to begin Exodus very soon."

"Why?"

"It looks like…in the the orbital spot we are rapidly parking into…there already exists another moon."

Helena stood transfixed.

"Another moon? A different moon?"

"No…this moon," Koenig shrugged. "Or a reasonable facsimile. Same mass, same ratio, same…same Alpha."

"So there are people over on that moon?"

"No! No transmissions. No Eagle activity. No lights. It looks abandoned from here. But we don't have time to check on that because we have to get down to THAT Earth and recon a spot to Exodus to, before this moon crashes into that moon!"

Koenig pointed furiously in the supposed direction of the opposite lunar body…seeming angry at it.

"John, why reconnaissance?" Helena asked with smiling optimism. "We have a whole world to land on and apparently it's empty…we can land anywhere."

"It gets worse," John tried to prepare her. "It looks like there's been a major cataclysm on this Earth. Lots of radiation and atmospheric damage oceanic currents have completely changed…even reversed. I don't know. Maybe…maybe the results of a total world war. It could be that an alien source devastated the surface. What ever happened…it is very thorough. According to radio mapping so far, what parts of the surface aren't subject to spotty gamma radiation is subject to heavy ultra violet damage due to sporadic reduction of tropospheric and ozone layer coverage. And then there is an ice age going on in some parts."

"My God!" Helena sat down heavily.

"Well…one good hope lies in an area on the North American continent…a region that was called Santa Maria on our maps. It looks like it might be habitable. Frequent good cloud or atmospheric coverage from the sun…and favorable winds that would blow non-contaminated air from the sea. Victor speculates that if we land there we can use the anti-grav towers to repel radioactive fogs when and if they roll in. Plants we've cultivated up here would flourish just fine. We would need all the emergency deflective geodesic domes for living quarters to protect us from low ozone layer days. Victor and Technical Section are making plans for all of that right now."

It took almost a quarter minute for Helena to remember a framed piece of canvas set up across the room next to the sleeping form of Regina. Her coffee cup crashed to the floor.

"Helena?"

Helena in an almost trance like state strode over to the partially completed painting set-up on its easel. She picked it up and showed it to John.

The landscape scene, in water colors, depicted virtually everything Koenig described. White geodesic domes spotted a woodland area with small crops growing all around and sunflowers flourishing in the margins. Distributed evenly through the pastoral scenery were a few stylized drawn lattice-work towers; a fairly faithful depiction of the very same type of anti-gravity towers that Victor had constructed to squeeze them through the crushing force of the black sun they had encountered and that still encircled the base

"John," Helena said with deadly earnestness now. "I think Regina was trying to tell us something."

"What we need to do?"

"No. What we've already done. I think all of this," she pointed to the elements of the painting. "…is already down there."

Koenig crossed his arms across his chest to consider this. It was slowly sinking in.

"Regina thinks that the Alphans from that moon have already did everything we are planning to do? Same place, same set up, same everything? That's where they went?"

"Maybe that's where they ARE," Helena corrected "I think she's seeing it all right now. She's living with THOSE Alphans. She thinks she's been living with them for 5 years."

"Well…at least that means that it is safe for us to live there too."

"No…that's exactly what she is saying can't happen…"

A chirp at Koenig side alerted him that he had an incoming communications session. He tapped at the central comm post.

"Commander," Paul's mustachioed face popped up on the monitor. "Exodus phase 1 initiating. Recon Eagle One is on pad one ready to launch."

Helena grabbed his arm tightly.

"John…under these circumstances, I think only you, Alan Carter and I should go down there."

"So, what are 'these' circumstances?" John looked at her quizzically.

"Regina seems to indicate that you and Alan are both…well… The John Koenig and the Alan Carter of those other Alphans…are both dead. That will eliminate the effects that are happening to Regina re-occurring to the recon pilots."

"And, then, why you?" he asked promptly.

"Because I'm the guinea pig."

John looked ready to begin shaking his head.

"_Someone_ has to be, John," Helena pre-countered. "Besides, someone has to record and observe the medical effects of this…situation. I really have no other choice."

* * *

Earth II

When Victor Bergman returned to the Alpha A-1 settlement he was exhausted. He had quickly returned when Paul had informed him of Computer/Kano's observations. He knew a delicate situation could be arising soon…and he wanted to be there to deflect the tensions.

The night's strong prevailing wind from the direction of the ocean deflected the engine sounds of Recon Eagle One landing up the valley, so that no one heard them coming.


	3. Competing Moons

**Competing Moons**

Confronting yourself in the flesh is very daunting. Helena had not truly expected it.

Sandra and she were making dinner as the sun went down when she looked up from her vegetables…and there she was. Not the way she was at that moment , but the old Helena of more than 5 years ago…bangs parted and swept away from her face and hair curled under perfectly. That Helena looked very different. It, frankly, was a shock. She stood dead in her tracks…seemingly disoriented by her twin's presence. Sandra, more acutely aware of the danger that this other Helena represented screamed.

The trap was sprung.

Paul, David and Tanya pounced on the interloping Helena and Alan with lasers drawn. Koenig and Victor emerged from the other direction in time to calm everything down.

In a way it was great seeing Alan Carter and the Commander again, even if it wasn't their John and Alan. Paul and Kano escorted them a little bit away from geodesic huts that were the settlement's abodes…where Paul and Sandra's children were.

Paul escorted Alan down to the old Eagle pad at the edge of their agricultural fields. Kano, Tanya and Victor stayed with the Koenig and Helena from the approaching moon.

"This is the Earth, but not the world we knew," Victor explained. He went on to describe how small artifacts of a past civilization were sometimes excavated…and how this Earth lived in parallel to the Earth's that their individual moons had torn away from…but was not exactly the same.

Helena noticed her doppelganger slipping out of the hut where she had been cooking to go to another geodesic shelter. She had a good idea of what she might be going to do.

"May I go and help her?" Helena asked.

Everybody was tense and not at ease. She wasn't sure it was a good idea, but she had to do this. It was better to frame it as "help" instead of investigation. Tanya squeezed Kano's arm with apprehension as she regarded this 'wrong' version of their Helena.

"No," Kano responded. He looked toward John. "Our Helena has been through a lot..."

"I know" Helena said pausing him with her hands. "But she is looking after Regina Kesslan right now, right? I can help."

Tanya looked up at Kano pensively.

"Maybe she should, David," Tanya said. "So she can see what they are causing. What they are going to cause." The former assistant controller subconsciously ran left hand across her abdomen.

"Okay," Kano said deferring to his wife. "Okay. But you go warn Helena. See if it is okay."

"Thank you Tanya." Helena nodded to her as the woman slipped past her not touching. Helena stepped closer to John and said matter-of -factly. "You should be aware that their John and Helena were married…before he died."

It was yet another twist for Koenig.

* * *

At the edge of the farmland, where it began to give way to the curves of the Santa Maria foothills, sat a large unused square of dust. Paul and Alan arrived there. At the center of the old pad were two largish white stones side-by-side. Chiseled into one was the inscription:

"Alan Carter, Husband Astronaut, I love you wherever you are."

Several sunflowers in various stages of wilting were piled-up.

"She comes here every day," Paul said solemnly. "She loved you very much. You two were going to be the next scheduled to have children after Helena and John. We had some rough times. We recovered the soil and had a good back-up of harvests. We got good predictions of droughts and weather conditions. When those hyper-space whirlpools would erupt were harder to pinpoint. You were a good farmer."

"I've never been here before, Paul." Alan knelt down and ran his finger over his own gravestone.

"She never quite recovered from your death," Paul continued unabated. "Helena bounced back. She delved into making our communities strong. Regina kept expecting you to pop back up. With everyday her disappointment grew."

"…And now, here I am."

* * *

Helena wanted to just observe at first. She noticed how the same set up she had on Alpha had been transplanted down into this geometrically constructed hut. The power source no doubt was the residual decay battery system using recycled nuclear waste. It was ingenious.

She watched as this Earth-Helena sat at the side of a shivering Regina who was covered in a cooling blanket to cool down her brain and keep it from swelling. Regina appeared to be comatose, but the other Helena was beginning to look very unsteady.

"Please don't just stand there," she said to herself.

Moon-Helena glided into the hut softly.

"John's here, you know," she said in her usual dulcet tone.

Earth-Helena stood up.

"Not MY John." Earth-Helena swayed woozily.

Moon-Helena went out to help hold her up, but Earth-Helena steadied her own self as she held a hand out in pause.

"We cannot touch. One of us would be destroyed.'"

The words shocked. Moon Helena's eyes involuntarily began to well up with tears as she regarded the state of her future self.

"And since I am feeling the weakest…it will be me." The Earth-Helena gave a weak smile at this irony. She knew she was physically hardier than this other Helena. She didn't know why she was losing out, but it served as an important lesson. "We cannot coexist."

* * *

The others stood outside listening to Professor Bergman pontificate about the nature of the universe. He suddenly paused when he saw brown robed Earth Helena emerge from the habitation units.

She glided calmly over not saying a word. Everyone watched in stunned silence. She approached John who, for once in his very decisive life, did not seem to know what to do. He glanced over at his Moon-Helena who could only give a worried shrug.

As she approached John regarded her warmly. Suntanned skin and hair pulled back gave her different sort of beauty.

"Hello…Helena," he said pleasantly to her.

"Koenig. I was Helena Koenig," she informed him. "I know you don't know me. Not the way I know you. But 2 years ago we were going to start a family. But then you went away."

"I…I'm sorry," he began to apologize.

"Sssshhhh…" She was now close enough to gently put a much labored finger to his lips. "It's okay. You're really not my John. I know that. I know that. But…"

She turned her head into his.

"I am not worried that I am going to die today," she said softly. "I just don't want to leave these people without me."

She reached behind his neck.

"But someone has to be sacrificed." She had a satisfied smile on her face. "…And, in a way, this is a dream come true…For finally I get to say 'good-bye' to you."

She held a transfixed gaze onto his eyes.

"I love you John Koenig."

Her lips barely touched his when she collapsed in his arms.

Under Moon-Helena's guidance the Earth Alphans carried their Helena and placed her next to Regina to get cold-blanket therapy to reduce what the moon doctor diagnosed as cranial swelling.

When they re-emerged the Santa Maria settlers looked belligerent.

"You cannot come here," Paul said with a voice did not brook argument. "You're killing us."

"Look Paul," Alan said defensively. "You can't…"

"You cannot exist here," Sandra reiterated. She let her two year-old and four year-old son come out from the shelter of their white geodesic habitat. "We have families." She stood between Kano and Tanya and reached her hands to touch both of them. "We are getting stronger and bigger." Her white robed arm gestured to the small cluster of geodesic constructs, the anti-grav towers, and the cropfields all around. "You have no idea how we have struggled in the last 5 years to claw a living out of this place. We love one another. We're going to make it!"

"And we're not?" Alan was unmoved. He reached for his commlock as he looked plaintively towards John. "We've got to get Exodus moving Commander."

In a swift motion grabbed Alan's commlock hand and drew his laser on the astronaut at the same time. Kano placed the women and children behind himself as he drew his weapon too.

"Paul!" Victor placed his hands against both men to separate them. "Kano! This is not the way."

With the stand-off stabilized the professor wrung his hands together and began to postulate to John:

"There is a frame of order to this universe. This maelstrom emerges to disrupt this order…to rearrange the parts of the different cosmic continuums…but in the end like oil and water, they will not stay mixed. If forced together they WILL separate. You belong in your space and time. When those two moons meet it will cause havoc and one will be destroyed…but it will only be destroyed in this continuity. In its own continuum it will reemerge whole. Be on that moon when that transference happens, or the entities that you are and the entities that we are will be lost in a web of unresolveable conflicting and competing destinies."


	4. One Place, One Community

**One Place, One Community**

As Recon Eagle landed back on the moon it was a hive of frenetic activity. The other moon loomed large. The astral bodies were about to collide. The anti-grav towers were being tested and a glowing shield projected over Moon Base Alpha intermittently.

In Main Mission they found Paul yelling instructions to an Eagle. Sandra was doing the countdown to collision.

"Step on it Eagle 34 or we can't protect you," Paul warned. "Commander! I thought we lost Eagle 34 when we went through the vortex…but apparently it came through with us just a bit behind. It is catching up now, but it will just barely make to within coverage of the anti-grav field."

Koenig looked at the long range scan and then back again.

"Are we getting ghost echoes of the sensors? I am seeing two Eagles on the scope," John asked.

"It must be," Paul said skeptically. "But we've done diagnostics and all the sensor arrays seem fine. And all other Eagles are accounted for."

"Collision thirty seconds, Paul" cried Sandra.

Koenig looked to Kano.

"Extend the anti-grav shields out as far as you can. We have to encompass Eagle 34 at least. Tanya, see if you can get a transmission out! Tell them to hurry hurry. Every inch counts. We will try to cover them too…if we can. "

"Fifteen seconds!" Sandra counted.

"Anti-grav effect shielding extended at maximum," Kano announced. "It's just enough for 34…"

"Commander I am getting a weak signal from the other Eagle."

On the central monitor a fuzzy picture emerged of an Eagle cockpit and two yellow helmeted figures that appeared to be bearded…

"My God," John said. "That's…that's…"

"Five...four…three…two…one…collision"

The two moons touched. They merged and then they decided to separate. So they each went parallel to each other, existing at different times and different places.

One moon stayed in faithful orbital matrimony to it's reviving partner...The Earth...never to leave her again.

The other moon continued on its destiny...no matter where that lay...

* * *

Sturdy ol' Helena recovered quickly. Eventually Regina began to come up too.

In morning Helena quickly resumed her chores. Regina sluggishly donned her black robe, covered her head with the hood, and shuffled out to pick wild sunflowers. She placed the tribute on Alan's epitaph stone, said a prayer, and went back to help Sandra Tanya David and Paul in the fields.

Helena came out to relieve Tanya reminding her to take a lighter load now that she was with child. The doctor also ran her hand over Regina's brow and mentioned that she ought to take a break too.

"No…it's okay," said Regina only still in mild delirium. "I thought Alan was here. But it wasn't was him, was it? I was so ill…"

"Another Alan and another John were here, Regina," Helena confessed point blank. "I wish you had been awake to see them. It was wonderful."

Helena hugged her softly. It surprised everyone who were not used to seeing her so emotive.

"Really?" Regina said a little brightly "At least you got to see John. You got to say goodbye, huh? Did you tell him?"

"Yes, Regina. Yes."

Sandra and Tanya looked on and marveled that the two were finding strength. The two wives appreciated how fortunate they currently were. They offered to stay out while the other two recovered. But, Helena and Regina needed to be with their friends…so they all worked out in the fields until the end of the day.

As the sun got low the men came in from the fields as the women were already finishing an early supper preparations. The next day was going to be their Sabbath or day of rest. They cleaned up and ate.

As was their tradition they gathered in a semi transparent geodesic hut with a hole in the roof as the sun set. A small fire was built. Paul picked up his guitar and began to play a tune. He was more relaxed …as if a burden had been lifted from him. As he picked up the tempo of his beat his two sons watched him play. When Tanya returned, Kano approached her and gave her an elaborate bow.

"May I have the honor of this dance, Mrs. Kano?" he asked politely.

Tanya, garbed delicately in a pale orange saffron robe that would eventually be her maternity wear, curtsied graciously and smiled up at him. She extended one hand so that David could take it.

"Yes please, Mr. Kano."

Sandra and Regina had emerged. Sandra took her place by Paul's side. Regina knelt by the fire transfixed by the flames. Helena came and soon joined Regina. Kano spun Tanya about in-between holding her in his arms as they twirled to Paul's melody. It was by the second song that Victor pulled himself away from preening his hybrid sapling plants and joined them.

It was midway though a second tune that Regina cocked her head to the side. She clutched at her chest, but then she swept down the hood of her black robe. She looked up and around.

She stood up and wandered around almost dazedly.

"Careful of the fire," Helena warned.

But Regina kept turning and twisting, looking around until she bumped into the dancing pair of David and Tanya.

"What's the matter, huh?" Tanya smiled…her face a little blushed. "Did you want to cut in?"

But Regina grasped strongly onto the shoulders of the dancing spouses.

"Do you hear that?" she asked as if picking up some undetectable transmission.

Kano motioned to Paul with an up and down motion of his arm to bring the guitar sound down. Paul cocked an ear.

"I… no. It's just the wind blowing up the valley…coming off the ocean surf as usual. Right, Regina?"

She wasn't so convinced. There was the sound of the normal prevailing wind. But underneath that was an old familiar sound.

"I hear..." she began. "I hear an Eagle coming…"

She looked up at the roof.

"It's hovering overhead."

Everybody stopped. They tumbled outside.

Sure enough the sound that was being masked by the sea-ward winds was the engine roar of an Eagle coming down from the skies. It was partially visible through the ragged trees that made a line through their farmland. They all ran to meet it.

As they emerged on the other side of the tree line the great white Eagle was bathed in the light of the setting sun…which gave a brilliant orange glow to all of its surfaces.

"Oh my!" Regina started running toward it. Helena ran after her. It was approaching the old landing pad. Flecks of silver shown through where the white paint had chipped off or where scavenged parts from other disassembled Eagles had been welded on. It was an old battered Eagle.

Regina and Helena squatted down and held each other from tumbling away as the graceful bird settled down in a terrible blast of heat, air and thruster exhaust. Though they did not want to take their eyes off of it, they were forced to look away at touchdown as a final blast of the retros forced a plume of dirt and dust up and all around the old spacecraft. As its engines shut down they were the first to run up to the side door, but when it opened they both stumbled back…

A helmeted figure came down the ramp…and then another.

With practiced efficiency the first astronaut unscrewed his fasteners and removed his helmet. From beneath came the bearded saturnine face of John Koenig.

"John!" Helena stood up amazed.

"John Koenig!" Victor exclaimed. "You're back!"

"Yeah…" John said casually. "Sorry we're a bit late, but we got caught up in that maelstrom. It kicked us back a little."

"Just...a little?" Victor looked thoughtful for second. "Well...then you must have been caught in some time dilation..."

"John!" Helena sobbed. She fell into his arms.

"Really? What time is it? Are we late?"

The figure behind Koenig removed his helmet with a huff. Astronaut Alan Carter stood there.

Regina Carter ran full force into him and wouldn't let him go.

"Will someone tell me what's going on here?" he asked. He embraced his sweet wife tenderly. "Hi honey. I'm home."

John turned Helena's face to his and kissed her. He could see she had been though some troubles.

"I think we've been gone longer than we thought," John said back to Alan.

"John Koenig," said Professor Bergman. "You've been gone more than one and a half years."

"No way..." John balked. He looked down at Helena who was running rivulets of tears down her face. "It can't have been even a full day for us to come in and out of the vortex. Are you seriously telling me a year and a half has gone by...for you all?"

"547.5 days to be exact…" was all Helena could blurt out.

Over with the other couple only one phrase was being repeated. Regina Carter kissed her husband over and over and over again all while saying:

"I knew you didn't die. I knew you didn't die. I knew you didn't die. I knew you didn't die."

* * *

They walked back on the narrow path to their settlement through their fields. Little John, Sandra and Paul's oldest son, led first…then trod Alan carrying Regina in his arms the whole way. Victor, on his shoulder carried Paul and Sandra's youngest child, Anton. Next was the reunited John with reunited Helena glued to his arm. Paula and Sandra followed holding hands. And last was the couple of David, with Tanya tucked protectively in his arms.

They were, once again…one moon, one community… one time, one place…where they should be. All together again and whole.


End file.
